We Can Rebuild Her……..we think

Ahhh summertime! The sun is shining, flowers are blooming, birds are singing and….*sniff sniff*….What in the hell is that smell?!! Oh gawd that’s nasty!

Over the years I’ve had to adjust to one of the downsides of living in a big city. The random smells you encounter on your daily journey. The pungent aroma of pee and rotting garbage wafting out of an alleyway. That cloud of steam coming from the subway grates that smells like pee. And the worst offender of them all….RANDOM BODY ODOR. You can adjust to most things. I mean, common sense and experience tell you to hold your breath when you walk past an alleyway because you know it’s going to smell a bit funky. If the sidewalk isn’t too crowded you can sidestep sewer and subway grates to avoid stinky clouds. But there is no way to control the random funk that wafts up your nose when you’re around people. That smell so strong you can taste it! Now granted the only body odor you can control is your own and that of the people you love. During the winter everything is fine because we’re all layered up and you have no idea the person sitting next to you is stinky unless they take off their coat. But in the summertime, there’s no protection from other people’s funk.

Say you’re on the train and you’ve been walking out in the hot sun for an hour or so. You sit down and catch a whiff of what you believe are smelly armpits. Now if you’re not sure how well your deodorant holds up in the heat, or if you rushed out the house and forgot to put some on, you start to feel subconscious. At this point you need to make sure that smell isn’t coming from you. There are a few subtle techniques you can use to find out if you stink. The Stretch & Sniff: slowly stretch your arms above your head and tilt your nose toward one of your armpits, lean your head from side to side sniffing as you go. The Arm Scratch/Lint Pick: raise your arm in front of you and gently scratch, or if you’re wearing long sleeves pretend to pick lint off your shirt, dip your head quickly and take a sniff. The Where Did I Put That: ladies pretend like you’re digging through your purse to find something, lean in and take a sniff, men if your shirt has a pocket pretend like you’re looking in it and then lean in and take a sniff (if you don’t have shirt pockets you can pretend to pick link off your chest and sniff). All of these wonderful techniques can be used to make sure you’re not the owner of that stench.

Too many times I’ve hopped on a train or bus and caught a whiff of someone’s stanky pits and had to do a self-check to make sure it’s not me…..it’s them! Now I believe that being subjected to someone else’s body odor is a form of assault. If you don’t believe in wearing deodorant/anti-antiperspirant then that’s your business, but please keep your arms down. What bothers me are the rude people that not only expose us to their stench, they feel the need to wave their arms and move about while they repeatedly assault us with their funky selves. I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to not have to shield my nose and spend the rest of my commute uncomfortable because of someone else. This is why I want to start carrying Febreeze in my purse and randomly spray these Odor Offenders. I’m not talking about a travel size bottle…no no no…I mean one of those giant ones you get in an economy pack 2 for 1 type of deal. If I could I’d put those Glade Stick ‘Ems on people as they pass by, but I’m not putting out that kind of money. Now I’m not saying I need to use the whole bottle, depending on their level of funk that will let me know how much spraying I need to do. The government has color coded threat levels….well let’s think of it in a three step area. LEVEL ONE: mild to moderate amount of funk….tolerable LEVEL TWO: okay you’re ripe but I’ve smelled worse LEVEL THREE: DEAR GOD WHAT IS THAT SMELL! OH MY GOD DID SOMETHING DIE INSIDE OF YOU?! I THINK I JUST THREW UP A LITTLE IN MY MOUTH!

I can handle a Level One or Two, but once you stray into Level Three I’m at a point where I have to physically restrain myself from slapping the offender. I mean really, did that odor rot your nasal senses so that you can’t smell that. Those are the people who need to be sprayed. See I believe what they’re doing is a form of assault upon all of us. By spraying them it’s a form of self-defense because as I said I’m being assaulted by their odor! Of course I’ve had several friends remind me that there are laws against what I want to do. And I don’t look good in prison orange so I’ll continue to bob and weave and hope that one day….one distant day in the future….people will stop spreading their funk and keep it to themselves.